One Year on; Still Going on Strong

by Ras Benaiah Gicuki

It’s now slightly over one year since Shiriki Organization initiated a community project at Maragua based mainly on natural farming techniques. The project was started with a long-term objective of establishing a community agricultural training centre which would be of benefit to the immediate as well as the neighboring communities. Our immediate goals are to ensure food security and environment conservation and restoration, to be achieved through seeking natural and modern methods of agriculture.

So far, we wish to express lots of gratitude first to the Almighty Creator who has been our primary inspiration and source of life, then to the community of Maragua area which warmly welcomed us to be part of them despite being total strangers to them, and also to all people near and far who have assisted us in a way or another or who have keenly followed our progress. Without your support and cooperation, our highly esteemed ends will remain only but a fleeting illusion!

To have rehabilitated an almost 2-acre coach-grass infested parcel of land, and put it under an intercrop of indigenous food-crops, trees and herbs without the use of chemicals; this could not be achieved by lazy nor rash men. This, again, could be nothing short of a miracle before the eyes of local farmers who apparently cannot bear the burden of the expensive and intoxicating chemicals imposed upon them by capitalistic investors in the agricultural sector.

Then - early in the project

Now - a plot of Ethiopian kales and spinach



Natural farming, as compared to chemical farming where a farmer can easily eliminate a given pest, weed or disease and can maintain a luxuriant field of crops, calls for patience coupled with a high sense of consciousness and discipline. These God-given virtues are quite uncommon among the youths of today, but I believe they are inherent in all humans for man is made in the likeness of the Creator. Additionally, for one to embark and stand resolute in organic farming, it is equivalent to entering into a battlefront where one’s strength of arms and determination really matter. This being so, it calls for unified efforts at the onslaught, this backing an old adage that ‘unity is strength’. We can therefore proudly attribute our progress so far to the Inity (unity) of brothers and sisters having a common interest of restoring our land and wealth. An ancient elder, when sharing his wise-mind the other day, found us tilling the field when he remarked that a home without the young men is always vulnerable to attacks. The interpretation to this is that through the massive exodus of youth from the rural to the cities and towns has left the aged and a few youth remnants to be easily deceived into use of chemical. And it is clear that the more the knowledgeable and strong youth continues to be away from the land, the worse the situation gets, meaning it will take much more sacrifice to restore sanity in this occupation. 

Organic & Inity! the only strength to overcome 'deadly shortcuts'

Chemical! lush cucumbers at the neighbor's

It is not the strength nor the will, nor the determination of those who fight us that will lead to our downfall but the weakness of our unity. This wise teaching has been a constant source of encouragement to nurture the seed of Inity (unity) which the Almighty JAH in His Love has sown within our hearts.
 
Loyal Volunteers

Our two latest volunteers, Ras Mwangi and Ras Mathaara, who entered the camp in mid July, have grown in this communal Livity to become epitomes of spirited and disciplined young farmers. The couple abandoned the dull lives they were used to back in the ghetto when they realized the need to serve the community through Shiriki Organization and thus reap the mutual and manifold benefits.

“I have Livicated myself for an indefinite period of time and I&I want when I break from the camp to have graduated in this institution of natural way of life…” says Ras Mwangi, adding, “One of my first lessons was how to irrigate young crops. The brother guided I on how to water young beans, and now to see the fruit thereof it heals I&I!” This he says as we harvest the first fruits of indigenous beans that is currently nourishing the volunteers.  For Ras Mathaara, he hardly leaves the farm, tending the humble plants.

It is within that first year of our activities in the farm at Maragua that we have seen one of our highly cherished visions come to fruition – that of acquiring expert training in food production and farm management. In this vein, Ras Rukundo, a volunteer whose Livication has been of immeasurable value, embarked on an expert training course in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development in the prestigious Baraka Agricultural College, Molo (www.sustainableag.org). The 18-month course is just but the beginning of a long-term venture of seeking and sharing expert knowledge in the agricultural value chain and rural development.

Ras Mwangi (L) and I on a beans harvest

Ras Rukundo with a local family.

Experience is the best teacher, so the saying goes, and it can’t fit better than in the enterprise of farming. The one year that we have been in the field has taught us crucial lessons that will guide us in future seasons. The lessons span right from seed to fruit, entailing land preparation, techniques of breaking seed dormancy, sowing and spacing, watering and caring, pest and disease control, as well as harvesting and preserving. By now, we have been able to study a few of the crops with their respective potentials, all this with an aim of identifying the best suited ones for this area that will lead us to processing and packaging the surplus thereby reviving agro-industries in the rural communities.

Beans under irrigation have given us a very positive result, while cassava which we planted right on our arrival and have kept planting on daily basis has been to us like an underground food-bank. Comphrey, Ethiopian kale and spinach add to this list. They have only mild pest/disease attacks, these being the daunting enemies in the course of production. On the flip side we have had corn for the April – August season, which was a poor performer not only in our farm but also to the majority of farmers in Kenya. Consequently, we’ve decided to reduce investment on maize and try sorghum in the forthcoming season for sustainability. Myself I look forward to the day when this highly dominating food-crop, and which is so demanding in terms of input, will cede its dominance and allow for the restoration of Afrikan indigenous cereals such as the nutritious millet and sorghum, just but a few examples.

A good performance of beans under irrigation

Indigenous bananas and cassava plantation

With the coming of a new season whose rains are increasingly showing the signs of arrival, and with the beginning of the second year of our project, our vision of a sustained Afrika slowly comes to reality. We, who have advanced in this mission, have vowed not to relent in our efforts until all the hungry are fed. We urge fellow youth to take up agriculture as a learning course and as an occupation, knowing that despite its neglect and the sabotage upon farmers, without farming there can be no food which is the stuff of life for all. 

“If only [Ethiopia], with an assured wealth of natural resources, would look at what the barren Sahara Desert has been made to produce by the endeavour of trained scientists, she would realize that science is a source of wealth.” H.I.M. Haile Selassie I

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